Natural-History Collectors. 7041 



have always their feet, arms and fingers covered with rings made of 

 thick wire, and on their necks strings of glass beads ; their ears are 

 pierced with an enormous hole, through which they pass the bone of 

 an animal, which is often more than three inches in circumference. 

 They wear their hair long, the same as the Annamites, and knot it up 

 with a comb made of bamboo ; besides this they wear a kind of 

 arrow made of wire, and ornamented with the comb of a pheasant. 

 Their features are good and sometimes regular, and many of them 

 have beards, that is to say, thick moustaches and an imperial : quite 

 alone and independent in the middle of their forests, they acknowledge 

 scarcely any other authority than the chief of the village, whose 

 dignity is generally hereditary. 



For the last year or two the King of Cambodia sent at times 

 the Mandarin who is nearest to the Stiengs as far as their first vil- 

 lages, to distribute marks of honour to their chiefs, hoping gradually 

 to bring them under his dominion, and to be able one day to get from 

 them slaves and ivory ; he has already a iew who pay him a small 

 tribute every three years. His emissaries, however, scarcely dare 

 pass the limits of their kingdoms, so much do they dread the arrows 

 of those savages and the fevers that reign in their forests. 



The natural character, however, of the Stieng, is gentle and 

 hospitable, and he is far from possessing the proud and stupid brutality 

 of the Cambodian, or the refined cruelty and corruption of the 

 Annamites; he is a good child of the forest, simple, and even 

 generous. As to his defects, they are those of all the Asiatics, — cun- 

 ning, an extraordinary ability to dissimulate, and idleness ; his passion 

 is hunting, and he leaves most of the hard work to the women. 

 In this they differ also from the Cambodians, that robberies are very 

 rarely committed among them. They believe in a Supreme Being, 

 but they only invoke the malevolent spirit, so that it may leave them 

 in peace. They bury their dead near their dwelling, and cover the 

 tomb with a roof of leaves, so that the soul of the departed may come 

 and repose there, eat the grains of rice, drink water or wine, which 

 they take care to place there frequently in small tubes of bamboo. 

 On the roads formerly frequented by their departed relatives, and in 

 their rice fields, they place similar offerings, which remind one of the 

 custom of the Chinese, — " Come and visit us often, poor soul ; " they 

 then say, " here is rice to eat, water to drink, a little earth to repose 

 upon, and arrows for hunting." They do not believe in the trans- 

 migration of souls, but they believe that animals have also souls, 

 which live after the death of their bodies, and that their souls 

 XVIII. 2 K 



